FBI shifts from immigration to cyberterrorism operations amid Iranian threat: report
Following the U.S. attack on Iran, the FBI will shift its agents from immigration enforcement to counterterrorism and cybersecurity.
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Had it not been for the traffic violation, a murder-for-hire plot organized on behalf of the Iranian government in July 2022 could have claimed the life of an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist living in New York.
Instead, two men who federal prosecutors described as leaders of the Russian mob were convicted this week of their roles in the failed plot to kill Masih Alinejad, who until his departure in 2009 was a fierce critic of Iran and its human rights abuses.
On October 30, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Iranian defendant Rafat Amirov and Georgian defendant Polad Omarov were each sentenced to 25 years in prison. Both defendants were found guilty in March after a two-week trial on charges including, among other things, murder for hire and attempted murder with the aid of extortion.
“The defendant and his criminal associates nearly shot and killed an Iranian-American journalist on the streets of New York,” said John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security. “We are committed to holding accountable those who are complicit in this despicable regime.”
The Justice Department announced that Alinejad, who has publicized Iran’s discriminatory and oppressive treatment of women, suppression of political expression, and killing of Iranian protesters, was the target of multiple Iranian-mandated plots to harass, intimidate, and kidnap.
“The conspiracy exposed at trial involved actors on three continents and culminated with a hitman armed with an AK-47 outside Ms. Alinejad’s apartment,” said Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The most recent conspiracies prior to this murder-for-hire plot took place in 2020 and 2021, when Iranian intelligence officials and associates conspired to kidnap Alinejad from the United States in order to silence his continued criticism of the regime, according to court documents and trial evidence.
After the plot was discovered, Alinejad said, “I am grateful to the FBI for thwarting the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence’s plot to kidnap me.” “We have always feared the Islamic regime, and now the Islamic regime fears me.”
When those efforts failed, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps turned to Mr. Amirov and Mr. Omarov, according to court documents. Both men were senior members of the Bazghandi network, the Azerbaijani wing of the Russian mob. Amirov was a so-called vol, the highest rank of the mob, while Omarov, who aspired to become a vol, was his cousin.
According to the documents, the Guard offered Mr. Amirov $500,000 for the crime and provided personal information about Mr. Alinejad, including his home address in Brooklyn.
Around July 2022, Mr. Amirov sent information to Mr. Omarov. Omarov then shared the information with another gangster, Khalid Mehdiyev, of Yonkers, New York, in order to monitor and ultimately kill Alinejad.
According to the documents, Mr. Amirov and Mr. Omarov arranged for the delivery of $30,000 to Mr. Mehdiyev, who used some of the money to buy an AK-47 assault rifle, two magazines and 66 rounds of ammunition.
Mehdiyev repeatedly visited Alinejad’s neighborhood to stake out Alinejad’s residence and sent photos, videos, and updates on his activities to Omarov, who passed them on to Amirov.
According to the documents, events in late July 2022 unfolded as follows:
On July 24, Mediyev told Omarov that he was “at the crime scene.” Three days later, Mr. Omarov wrote to Mr. Amirov that Mr. Mehdiyev was ready to carry out the order and that “this matter will end today.”
The next day, July 28, Mehdiyev sent Omarov a video taken from inside his car with a rifle. “I’m ready,” he texted.
However, after staking out the mansion, Mehdiyev was stopped for a traffic violation as he drove away. Inside the vehicle, officers found an assault rifle, ammunition, gloves, a black ski mask and about $1,100 in cash, documents said. The rifle had a bullet in its chamber.
Mehdiyev was detained, and eventually the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps demanded the money be returned.
Law enforcement officials said the incident was part of an alarming increase in plots involving Iranian-funded criminal networks to target dissidents in the United States and around the world.
“This plot orchestrated by the Iranian government to assassinate dissidents in the United States shows the lengths to which authoritarians will go to silence the voices of freedom,” said Roman Rozhavsky, deputy director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
